A wild effort was made to abandon the burning subject, and for awhile,
as they sat upon the stoep smoking their pipes--the conversation ran
upon stock and local interests, and the prospects of rain to carry them
through the winter. But it soon came round again, as, indeed, in those
days it was bound to do, and the hotter and hotter grew Frank Wenlock on
the subject, the cooler and cooler remained his opponent. May, for her
part, sat and listened. She mostly shared her brother's prejudices on
that particular subject; but here was one whose opinion on most subjects
she held in the highest regard. Clearly, then, there was something to
be said on the other side.

"Why need you go on to-night, Mr Kershaw?" struck in Mrs Wenlock.
"Your room is always ready, you know, and it's quite a long while since
you were here."

"It won't be so long again, Mrs Wenlock. But I must be at Stephanus De
la Rey's to-night, because, over and above the delegate, I made an
appointment with Piet Lombard over a stock deal."

"Not to mention other attractions," cut in May, with a mischievous look
in her blue eyes. "Which is the favoured one--Andrina or Condaas?"

"How can one presume upon a choice between two such dreams of
loveliness? Both, of course," was the mirthful rejoinder. But there
was no real merriment in the mind of the girl. She had hoped he would
stay, had mapped out a potential afternoon's stroll--it might be, by
great good luck, the two of them alone together. And things were so
slow, and times so dull, there where they saw no one month in month out,
save an occasional Boer passer-by, or a travelling _smaus_, or
feather-buyer, usually of a tolerably low type of Jew--and therefore,
socially, no acquisition. Yes, after all, that was it. Times were so
dull.

"Don't be so long finding your way over again," was the chorus of
God-speed which followed the departing guest as his steed ambled away.

He, for his part, seemed to find a good deal to think about as he held
on over the wide brown plains, dismounting absently to let himself
through a gate every few minutes, for the whole veldt was a network of
wire fencing. Ostriches, grazing, lifted their long necks, some in
half-frightened, some in half-truculent curiosity, to gaze at him, then
dropped them again to resume their picking at the dried sprigs of Karroo
bush.

His acquaintance with the Wenlocks dated from just a year back: with the
family that is, for he and Frank